No optical drives?

Carlos E.R. wrote:

The government here (Spain) makes it very difficult, even impossible, to
fill the Income Tax not online.

In the UK filing online is the default, they have web based forms that
work very well the last decade or more, it lets you download your
completed info as a PDF. (it had performance issues many years ago
despite the predictable pinch points). Alternatively you can use 3rd
party software and let that upload the results to them.

If you want to file on paper you must do it several months earlier.

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

PDFXV will also allow me to export the page as an image. It
won't let me create pages, but I can export to bitmap, edit
in Paint Shop Pro, and paste the result back in. I dp that with
forms that don't have auto-fill capacity.

I think (it is long ago since the last time I did this) that I export to
image (ImageMagick or Gimp), and then import the result into Libre
Office as background page image, no wrap. This allows me to simply type
text in the page, and finally print it all or export to PDF. I might
even create entry form boxes if I'm very bored.

you did all of that just to fill out a form?

On 19/08/2020 12.34, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

PDFXV will also allow me to export the page as an image. It
won't let me create pages, but I can export to bitmap, edit
in Paint Shop Pro, and paste the result back in. I dp that with
forms that don't have auto-fill capacity.

I think (it is long ago since the last time I did this) that I export to
image (ImageMagick or Gimp), and then import the result into Libre
Office as background page image, no wrap. This allows me to simply type
text in the page, and finally print it all or export to PDF. I might
even create entry form boxes if I'm very bored.

you did all of that just to fill out a form?

Sure. It wasn't a form, it was a PDF page you print and fill by hand or
typewriter. There was no way to open the PDF and fill it - not even with
Adobe tools.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 18/08/2020 23.38, Mayayana wrote:
"Carlos E.R." wrote

| I use Foxit, which also has a Linux version.
|

I used to use that at one time. I don't remember
the problem with it. I think there were just a lot
of nags, or maybe it went non-free. Though Linux
may be different.

Yes, there was some criticism some years back. Yes, it is also possible
that the tool behaves differently in Linux or Windows.

For instance, I did not use it for several years on Linux because their
version got no updates, it was obsolete and had security issues. On
Windows I may have tried it, but I preferred Acrobat Reader.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxit_Software#Foxit_Reader

The company’s first product, Foxit Reader, was released in 2004.[5] It
provides a way to view, create and sign PDF files, and add annotations
to them.[13] Foxit Reader 3.0 offers comparable functionality to Adobe
Reader.[14] Older versions were notable for their speed and small file
sizes.[15] Foxit released version 8.0 in 2016.[16] The software is
pre-installed on Windows PCs from HP, Acer, and ASUS.[17] Foxit released
version 9.0 in 2017.The software is available as a freeware download for
PCs running Windows 7 (or later), MacOS and Linux.[18][19]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxit_Reader#Issues

Issues

With version 6.1.4, the Foxit installer was bundled with potentially
unwanted programs like OpenCandy which installed the browser-hijacking
malware Conduit.[12][13] Following complaints from users, it was removed
after version 6.2.1.[14]

In July 2014, the Internet Storm Center reported that the mobile version
for iPhone was transmitting unencrypted telemetry and other data to
remote servers located in China despite users attempting to opt out of
such data collection.[15]

Starting with version 10, Foxit Reader no longer has PDF creation
features.[16]


--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 19/08/2020 05.38, Andy Burns wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:

The government here (Spain) makes it very difficult, even impossible,
to fill the Income Tax not online.

In the UK filing online is the default, they have web based forms that
work very well the last decade or more, it lets you download your
completed info as a PDF. (it had performance issues many years ago
despite the predictable pinch points).Â* Alternatively you can use 3rd
party software and let that upload the results to them.

Yes, about the same thing here, but not for a decade. Maybe we copied
you :-)


If you want to file on paper you must do it several months earlier.

Ah! That's interesting.

(googling)

I found an article that says that the paper option disappeared on 2018.
Oops, year 2019 affecting the 2018 tax term.

https://www.elespanol.com/invertia/mis-finanzas/fiscalidad/20190313/desaparece-opcion-presentar-declaracion-renta-papel-impreso/382963338_0.html


--
Cheers, Carlos.

"Carlos E.R." wrote

| I don't think we can use paper nowdays.
|

That seems a bit extreme. It's nice to be a Yank.
I can measure things in inches and file my taxes on
paper. Of course, there are down sides. We have a
psychopath as president and while I have to carefully
separate my recyclables from rubbish each week, the
entire country only pretends to recycle. We'll die
screaming "Freedom!".

Social Security, though (the retirement pension
system here) required me to register online and will
only pay me via automatic deposit to my bank. I
wouldn't mind if I thought it was safe, but generally
the people running these things don't know what
they're doing. (Though I should say that so far my
experience with SS has shown impressive competence.)

Why is Google trying to run scripts
from a government website?! It's nuts. Governments
are hiring industry to do their job, partly due to
incompetence and partly due to lobbying and back
room deals. It's been the Republican approach and now
it's the Democrat approach as well. Privatization. Even
the meals in military dining halls are privatized. So some
fat cat gets a cut of everything the government does.

Over the last couple of years I haven't even been able
to get downloadable tax forms until late January! Yet I'm
going to trust that someone hasn't been able to set up
a man-in-the-middle hack with their website?

There's also a growing reverse problem: Government,
often banned from collecting private information, is just
buying it legally from spyware companies. Data is treated
recklessly all around.

I imagine one of these days, everything will be digital,
then a group of anarchist hackers will take down the
system and we'll no longer have any idea of who owns
what. Then society will collapse and we'll all starve to
death as long lines form outside courthouses but not
at food banks....
I'm surprised no one's made that movie yet. People
make horror movies about machines taking over but no
one makes movies about us becoming helplessly dependent
on digital data. Thank God you have blu-ray backups.

"Andy Burns" wrote

| In the UK filing online is the default, they have web based forms that
| work very well the last decade or more, it lets you download your
| completed info as a PDF. (it had performance issues many years ago
| despite the predictable pinch points). Alternatively you can use 3rd
| party software and let that upload the results to them.
|
| If you want to file on paper you must do it several months earlier.
|

You people are so well behaved.

That reminds me of a joke from Carrot Top about visiting
the US. He talked about how, in the UK, when a cop pulls
you over they pull in front, walk back to your car, and
politely say something like, "So, we've been misbehaving
a bit, have we?" When CT visited the US, at some point he
ended up with sirens behind him and waited for the cop to
pull in front. He didn't realize that in the US the cops always
pull up behind your car. So after going a distance waiting for
the cop to pull ahead, finally the cop pulls up beside him
and yells out the window, "HEY!! MARIO ANDRETTI!! PULL OVAH!!"

Chris wrote:
nospam wrote:
personally, i've yet to encounter a single pdf in in the past 20 years
or so that required using adobe software to read it or create it for
that matter.

Good ol nospam. Ignoring everyone's experiences which don't match his own
world view. Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't
exist nor that they're commonly found.

In particular pdf forms rarely work outside of adobe acrobat. I know they
should, but the people creating them don't care about portability and just
create forms which work for them. Of course adobe don't help in this
respect.


https://www.windowscentral.com/how-r...ter-windows-10

Right-click Start, select Run, start the program
"control" running.

This should bring up the Control Panels.

While System is an item in the Control Panels, there
should also be a Troubleshooting one accessible directly.
You may need to change the view to "Small Icons" to get
a better view.

There is an item in Troubleshooting for Windows Store Apps.
Store Apps not only includes "things you buy" - lots of
decorations on the computer may be dependent on many of
the same things.

A person might ask "well, why does the Start menu respond?".
Good question. You would think the machine could be rendered
useless by failures of this sort.

You might be able to start "Control" from Task Manager,
using the run option in there. That's if the machine can
do anything to respond to control-alt-delete.

In any case, if multiple things are not responding, that
suggests the Metro launcher is not working for some reason.

If you're Googling and find references to tileiconcache or the
like, the tile mechanism was rewritten at some point, and
the failure mechanisms today would be different than some
of those reports of yesteryear.

If the Store icon did not work, there is "wsreset.exe" for
that. To correct OneDrive problems, there is "OneDriveOneDrive.exe".
The OS is sprinkled with a few Win32 repair items. Heaven
help the poor person running Windows 10-S where Win32
things do not run at all.

The OS is just so much bailing wire and binder twine.
It's what we would call in a hardware situation,
"a reliability nightmare due to the excess complexity".

Even brand new OSes installed out-of-the-box have had
failures of this sort. Presumably caused by software
tasks finished outside of some assumed order, and without
sufficient interlocks to guarantee correctness.

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sun, 9 Aug 2020 02:38:05 -0700, "John C."
wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:
micky wrote:

Is it my imagination or are they these days selling a lot of PC's
without DVD drives?

Normal people don't really use them any more, I doubt I'd bother on a
laptop, just use a USB optical if needed, with a new tower I'd probably
fit one for completeness.

"Normal" people? For archiving, I still use the HELL out of my DVD
burner. I just bought a laptop while in a hurry. Got it home and
discovered that it had no burner, almost returned it.

That's the way I felt. I was still only looking at the webpages, but it
shocked me I think once I bought something that didn't have what I
wanted -- can't remember now.

It's kind of like
the way a lot of newer TVs don't have RCA connectors on them so that you
can hook them up to your stereo. They want you to buy one of their
crappy sounding "sound bars".

Good to know. I need a tv too. Finally going to leave CRTs behind, at
least in one room. But that's a discussion for another day.

I have data CDs from as far back as 1993. *All* of my CDs and the DVDs
that I've burned still work flawlessly. As long as they're stored in a
cool, dark and dry location, they are very dependable.

OTOH, I don't trust thumb drives simply because they can easily be
accidentally overwritten.

LOL I use the DVD player, and the burner too, though not as much as
you do. (I'm especially pleased that my laptop has one too.)

It seems if you buy a new computer like Optiplex, mostly designed to sit
on its side, they still have DVD's so that is the plan. Even though it
means giving up on the really big case. Can't have everything, though I
will look again for one with everything. I'd better stop dawdling,
however.

micky wrote:

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sun, 9 Aug 2020 02:38:05 -0700, "John C."
wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:
micky wrote:

Is it my imagination or are they these days selling a lot of PC's
without DVD drives?

Normal people don't really use them any more, I doubt I'd bother on a
laptop, just use a USB optical if needed, with a new tower I'd probably
fit one for completeness.

"Normal" people? For archiving, I still use the HELL out of my DVD
burner. I just bought a laptop while in a hurry. Got it home and
discovered that it had no burner, almost returned it.

That's the way I felt. I was still only looking at the webpages, but it
shocked me I think once I bought something that didn't have what I
wanted -- can't remember now.

It's kind of like
the way a lot of newer TVs don't have RCA connectors on them so that you
can hook them up to your stereo. They want you to buy one of their
crappy sounding "sound bars".

Good to know. I need a tv too. Finally going to leave CRTs behind, at
least in one room. But that's a discussion for another day.

I have data CDs from as far back as 1993. *All* of my CDs and the DVDs
that I've burned still work flawlessly. As long as they're stored in a
cool, dark and dry location, they are very dependable.

OTOH, I don't trust thumb drives simply because they can easily be
accidentally overwritten.

LOL I use the DVD player, and the burner too, though not as much as
you do. (I'm especially pleased that my laptop has one too.)

It seems if you buy a new computer like Optiplex, mostly designed to sit
on its side, they still have DVD's so that is the plan. Even though it
means giving up on the really big case. Can't have everything, though I
will look again for one with everything. I'd better stop dawdling,
however.

If you build your own, you can have exactly what you want (from all
parts that are available and within your budget).

Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 18/08/2020 22.20, Mayayana wrote:
"Andy Burns" wrote

|
| Doesn't the IRS have a website where tax payers can file their tax
returns?

I'm sure they do. I don't do things online that need
security. And they have to be filled out, anyway. And
I want paper copies, anyway. So online would probably
be more work with no advantage aside from saving a
stamp.

The government here (Spain) makes it very difficult, even impossible, to
fill the Income Tax not online. It is a web form currently, but years
ago it was a java application (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and before that
it was a Windows (or Linux at some point) executable, that run offline.

Here (The Netherlands) it was and is about the same, with the
difference that - AFAIK - the Windows/Mac/Linux programs were 'native
programs, not Java.

Before the Windows programs we had DOS programs which came on a
3.5" diskette, because most people did not have Internet yet. So the
'IRS' sent a diskette with the software and you could send back the data
(file) on the same diskette (or another one). 'High tech' for that time!
:-)

[...]